Me
Hi! I'm Tim. I live in Boulder, Colorado with my partner. I grew up in Loveland (also Colorado). For 13 years, I lived on the East Coast (5 years in Boston and 8ish years in Brooklyn). I frequently go by "stum" as my life has many times involved being in a group with numerous Tims.
I work for Hudson River Trading on the core infrastructure for Python team. We have a small office in Boulder, but I frequently travel to the headquarters in NYC.
I graduated from MIT with a degree in Computer Science and Engineering. I also completed the two-year MIT-Gordon Engineering Leadership Program.
I describe myself thusly: athlete. command, achiever, analytical, deliberative, maximizer. curious. cynical, conscientious, tenacious, outgoing. tall.
I am passionate about the craft of software engineering, and I prefer working on codebases with deliberate design, useful commit messages and clean histories. I firmly care about minimizing unnecessary complexity (organizational, architectural, code) and technical debt. I believe that empathy is a core engineering value.
I find success by remembering that there are no technical solutions to social problems.
My Work
I currently work on the "Python@HRT" team at Hudson River Trading (HRT). We are part of the distributed compute and infrastructure group, and we focus on making the Python experience better for the entire firm.
Prior to that, I spent 7 years on the Trading Operations team (a very industry-specific role).
One of my favorite things about HRT is the wealth of knowledge of my coworkers and their willingness to share that knowledge. I knew very little C++ before coming to HRT, but through the patience and generosity of my peers, I've learned enough to get by and help make C++ and Python work together seamlessly.
The best part about my job is that it's a highly technical role but isn't always programming.
Hobbies, et cetera
I've been fortunate to find many things I'm good at. But occasionally, it leaves me feeling over-committed.
I am a competitive swimmer. I grew up swimming with Loveland Swim Club from age 6, continuing through high school, where I was twice state champion. I swam all four years of college, receiving a number of accolades including being named MIT freshman athlete of the year and receiving two All-American titles. After a lengthy break from swim meets, I now compete as a master. I swim with Boulder Aquatic Masters when in town and try to drop in on other masters practices while traveling.
I balance out my swimming by racing in traditional running events (5Ks, 10Ks), overnight relays and novelty endurance events (e.g. Tough Mudder, Muddy Buddy). The best running is when I'm on the wealth of trails we have around Boulder. I occasionally run and swim in the Boulder rez, and I dabble in triathlon from time to time. I organized HRT's first ever entry (including intra-company tryouts!) into the Bloomberg Square Mile Relay, where we placed third.
I love to ski. My favorite place for that in Colorado is Copper Mountain. I also enjoy travelling the world to ski. I have never skied on the East Coast.
I am Private Pilot. I trained with CFI Chris Dupin at the East Coast Aero Club at Hanscom Field (KBED) while I lived in Boston. I currently fly out of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC).
My favorite food is anything with caramelized onions. My favorite place to be is Summerhouse at Crescent Beach, FL. My favorite color is a deep, almost lapis, azure (see the color of the links on this page). My favorite RPGs are made by BioWare. My favorite punctuation mark is the em dash. My favorite Linux user space initialization system is systemd, and like the project, I prefer that my moniker (stum) be stylized in all lowercase. My favorite open-source license is the 3-clause BSD License. I know how to exit most text editors, but I like emacs.
I would prefer that a technological singularity occur in my lifetime.
Lives Past
Some things I used to work on:
Abine — I worked here for a bit more than a year after college. I learned configuration management (in Chef) while managing cloud infrastructure. I made substantial contributions to the organizational and technical processes to reduce technical debt and human involvement. I engineered some internal tools, mostly around analytics and reporting. Generalists thrive at a startup!
I Saw You MIT — In December 2009, I co-founded this site with my friend Keone. I learned a lot about internet communities. At the height of its popularity, we received 3000 visits a day.
Discover Electrical Engineering and Computer Science — A Freshman Pre-orientation Program sponsored by MIT's department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I served as a staff member and as one of two coordinators.
MIT Greek Life —
I am a brother in The Bond of the
Massachusetts Gamma Chapter of
the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
During my tenure, I served as the chapter's steward, network administrator,
warden (ritualist) and new member educator.
I was an officer on the MIT InterFraternity Council
executive for a little over a year, first as the interim PR chair, then as Vice President.
In the spring of my senior year, I was awarded the Frederick Gardiner Fassett, Jr.
Award for service to the MIT Fraternity, Sorority and Independent Living Groups
community.
Teaching at MIT — Some of my favorite experiences from school were the times when I was able to share what I knew while deepening my own knowledge. I worked as a lab assistant for 6.01, MIT's introductory EE/CS course and 6.189, an introductory Python course taught during January. I was a teaching assistant for 6.170, a course in medium-scale software engineering.
Other MIT — From late 2012-2013, I rowed with the
MIT Rowing Club and
helped stabilize the organization as the interim President.
I danced with MIT DanceTroupe, a
performance dance group run entirely by students, for three years. I served
as a choreographer and officer.
I walked backwards while showing around
prospective students and their parents the quirks of TFP.
Eidetic Technologies (AKA Tech by Tim) — Inspired by early memories of trying to teach my grandfather to play Klondike Solitaire on a computer, I founded and ran a not-for-profit company to provide free tech support to seniors in Northern Colorado during my Junior and Senior years of high school. I made around 200 house calls to 124 different homes. I received a grant from a local family to defray the costs of providing this service, and I wrote software to track these visits.
Reaching Me
I read email at me@tjstum.com. I frequently (but not always) use the username stum or anabus.
I have a page in the biggest book of faces, picture my life's adventures on Instagram, exchange kudos on Strava and socially code on GitLab and GitHub.
I have a résumé if you want that, but a lot of my specific experience is described on this page in more depth.